Friday, November 22, 2013

Opposition to Common Core by Zandra Bishop

A friend of ours wrote this speech to testify publicly to her opposition to Common Core. Very concise rebuttal that shows the level of comprehension many American parents have. Common Core is an important Communitarian educational program that will serve our children to Pachamama on a silver platter.

Speech to Independent Regulatory Review Commission in opposition to Common Core

Our kids deserve better than to be treated like a hunk of iron passively waiting to be mined, melted, and molded into finely tuned cogs- by the corporate-state, for the corporate-state. The corporate wing of this beast wants to grind our kids into plug and play parts to install in their widget companies. The state wing of this beast wants to use our kids as the currency in what amounts to a giant corporate welfare bonanza. Together, they treat our kids like a commodity to be bought, sold, and harnessed for their benefit.

Common Core is an industrial model that grooms students into compliant servants who won't have the audacity to question, experiment, innovate, and compete against their generous benefactors who cling to their buggy whips, bureaucratic temples, and smoke-filled back rooms. We can no longer allow our kids to be treated like some form of property to be exploited by this beast. No one is the property of another to be treated this way and to think otherwise is to accept slavery.

I am commenting for the purpose of stopping the final adoption of Common Core Standards but more than that I am commenting to offer alternative ideas for improving education. Effective education does not require massive amounts of money and there is certainly evidence to back this up. (Attachment 1. "How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses" *Hint- it's not that new.) America was built on the efforts of individuals with eight grade, one room schoolhouse educations. Often less! (Attachment 2. "Advantages of the One-room Schoolhouse Approach to Teaching") And those individuals were empowered by being taught HOW to learn, instead of just being fed what to learn because it's on "the test". (Attachment 3. "Trivium 5-page Summary")

I realize it's pretty late in the game since this is the final vote but I truly hope our kids, and our teachers, will be spared this corporate-state conscription. Our kids are not robots, our teachers are not robots, and none of them deserve to be treated like they are.

Our kids are creative, innovative, bundles of potential. Teach them how to learn then get out of their way while they create their futures.

If Common Core is given final authorization I predict you'll start feeling serious blow-back from the public. There is already a national movement to opt-out of high-stakes testing. Our family may very well join.

I WILL not allow my kids to be guinea pigs for this latest round of educational experimentation. I WILL not allow my kids to be herded into corporate-state servitude.

If things become less than tolerable? I would fully support my kids dropping out of school, for the purpose of continuing their education free from the corporate-state. and, I would gladly support others and organize with them to turn that into a movement.

Ps. I don't want my kids to be "college and career ready", I want my kids to be entrepreneurs who EAT those guys for breakfast!

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I'm Niki Raapana, an independent researcher, co-founder of the Anti Communitarian League (ACL) with Nordica Friedrich, co- author of 2020: Our Common Destiny and co-author of the Anti Communitarian Manifesto.